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140

QUARRELS OF THE QUEEN AND DARNLEY.

[1566.

approval and support." * On the 6th of March the earl of Bedford and Randolph wrote to Cecil, from Berwick, of the jars between the queen and her husband, "for that he hath assured knowledge of such usage of herself as altogether is intolerable to be borne; which, if it were not overwell known, we would both be very loth to think that it could be true. To take away this occasion of slander he is himself determined to be at the apprehension and execution of him whom he is able manifestly to charge with the crime, and to have done him the most dishonour that can be to any man, much more being as he is." They then enclose the copies of "Conditions for the earls to perform to their king," and "Conditions to be performed by the king of Scots to the earls." Bedford and Randolph thus communicate to their government that the king of Scots has determined personally to revenge himself on the man who has dishonoured him; and that he has covenanted with the Protestant leaders in Scotland and England to accomplish their recall, on the condition of receiving their support in his desire for the crown-matrimonial. A political revolution was to be accomplished against the Roman Catholic ascendency, to which ascendency the queen of Scots had lent herself. It was to be accomplished before the meeting of parliament, in which the Romanist interests would have succeeded in confiscating the estates of Murray, Rothes, Grange, and the other lords who had fled to England; and probably would have attempted the re-establishment of the ancient religion. Bedford and Randolph add that "persuasions" would be tried with the queen; but if they did no good, "they propose to proceed we know not in what sort." If she attempted to raise a power at home, she was to be withstood; if she sought any foreign support, the aid of England was to be asked. In this communication to the English government we can scarcely see any ground for the charges which it is held to raise against the conduct of Elizabeth. It proves, says Mr. Tytler, that the queen of England had the most precise intimation of the intended murder of Riccio. He 'should have added, as the personal act of Darnley. It proves, we are further told, that it was intended to put an end to Murray's banishment, to replace him in power; and by one decided and triumphant blow to destroy the schemes which were in agitation for the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in Scotland. It is held that Elizabeth ought to have imprisoned Murray, discomfited the plans of the conspirators, saved the life of the victim marked for slaughter, and preserved Mary from captivity, "if she had been alive to the common feelings of humanity." This view of the duty of Elizabeth and her government arises out of the desire to treat such questions as personal ones, entirely separated from a great political principle. If it were safe for England that the queen of Scots should be supported in her alliances with those who sought, in the destruction of Elizabeth, the extinction of Protestantism in Britain, then the English queen might have been what is called magnanimous. She interfered not; and the Protestant nobles and preachers were not swept from the island. But all such reasoning upon the letter of Bedford and Randolph is wholly beside the mark. The date of this communication to the English court of the approaching political revolution has not been heeded, in the eager desire to blame Elizabeth and her ministers for not

Tytler, vol. vii. p. 29.

1566.]

PLOT AGAINST RICCIO.

141

having saved Riccio, and prevented the banished lords from returning to Scotland. The letter of Bedford and Randolph to Cecil was written from Berwick on the 6th of March. It enjoined the strictest secresy. It was the first intimation of "a matter of no small consequence being intended in Scotland." With extraordinary despatch Cecil might have received that letter on the 8th of March. On the night of the 9th, Riccio was murdered. On the 11th, Murray and the banished lords were in Edinburgh. When Murray was safe at Berwick on the 8th of March, ready to step across the border, he sent his secretary with a letter to Cecil to tell him of his plans.

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That Elizabeth or her ministers could, in consequence of these communications from Berwick, have prevented the catastrophe of the 9th, or detained Murray till the Scottish parliament, which met on the 4th, had passed a statute of treason against him and the other banished lords, will be difficult to establish in the face of these dates, to which the able historian of Scotland, in many respects so candid, has shut his eyes.

142

MURDER OF RICCIO.

[1566.

It is about an hour after sunset on Saturday, the 9th of March, when the court of Holyrood Palace is suddenly filled with armed men, and the glare of torches lights up the old monastic walls. This band, in number a hundred and fifty, is led by the earls of Morton and Lindsay. They close the outer gates; and the inmates of Holyrood are in their power. Bedford and Randolph, in a letter to the Council of England, give the most circumstantial relation of the events which immediately followed: "The king conveyeth himself, the lord Ruthven, George Douglas, and two other, through his own chamber by the privy stairs up to the queen's chamber, joining to which there is a cabinet about twelve feet square, in the same a little low reposing bed, and a table, at the which there were sitting at the supper the queen, the lady Argyle, and David, with his cap upon his head. Into the cabinet there cometh in the king and lord Ruthven, who willed David to come forth, saying that there was no place for him. The queen said that it was her will; her husband answered that it was against her honour. The lord Ruthven said that he should learn better his duty, and offering to have taken him by the arm, David took the queen by the plaits of her gown and put himself behind the queen, who would gladly have saved him; but the king having loosed his hands, and holding her in his arms, David was thrust out of the cabinet through the bed-chamber into the Chamber of Presence, where were the lord Morton, lord Lindsay, who intending that night to have reserved him and the next day to hang him, so many being about them that bore him evil will, one thrust him into the body with a dagger, and after him a great many other, so that he had in his body above fifty-five wounds. It is told for certain that the king's own dagger was left sticking in him. Whether he stroke him or not we cannot know for certain. He was not slain in the queen's presence, as was said, but going down the stairs out of the Chamber of Presence."* There is a letter from queen Mary herself to her ambassador in Paris, which, in the main circumstances, agrees with this account. But Mary says, that when Ruthven addressed Riccio, she asked her husband if he knew anything of this attempt; adding, "and on his denying it, we commanded lord Ruthven, on pain of treason, to quit our presence, while Riccio had sought shelter behind us." She then briefly tells of the murder in the ante-chamber, and says that immediately after the deed Ruthven returned, and upbraided her with tyranny, and her submission to the counsels of Riccio. But the letter of Bedford and Randolph details a frightful scene of violence between Darnley and the queen, in which he reproached her with infidelity, and said that "for her honour and his own contentment he gave his consent that he should be taken away." She replied, "Well; you have taken your last of me, and your farewell." Ruthven remonstrated, and said that Riccio "was mean, base, enemy to the nobility, shame to her, and destruction to her grace's country." She rejoined: "Well; it shall be dear blood to some of you if his be spilt." This account exhibits a most characteristic group: "Her husband this time speaketh little. Her grace continually weepeth. The lord Ruthven being evil at ease, and weak, calleth for a drink, and saith, 'This I must do with your majesty's pardon." The queen in a letter to the ambassador says, that against certain of her

* Ellis, First Series, vol. ii. p. 209.

1566.]

BIRTH OF A SCOTTISH PRINCE.

143

nobility, maintainers of her authority, who were in the palace at the time, "the enterprise was conspired as well as for David." These were Huntley and Bothwell; who escaped by ropes out of a back window; Atholl, Fleming, Livingston, Balfour, and Melvil, who also escaped. The concluding scene of that Saturday night is thus described by the queen: "The provost and town of Edinburgh having understood this tumult in our palace, caused ring their common bell, came to us in great number, and desired to have seen our presence, intercommuned with us, and to have known our welfare." But she was prevented speaking with these anxious citizens, "being extremely bested by those lords, who in our face declared if we desired to have spoken with them, they should cut us in collops, and cast us over the wall." The next day Murray arrived in Edinburgh. At his first interview with Mary he is said to have expressed great solicitude for her welfare, and she to have manifested a confidence in his affection. This reconcilement was very transient. At a meeting of the conspirators against Riccio with the lords who had returned to Scotland, strong measures were determined on as regarded the queen : "In their council," says Mary, "they thought it most expedient we should be warded in our castle of Stirling, there to remain while we had approved in parliament of all their wicked enterprises, established their religion, and given to the king the crown-matrimonial and the whole government of our realm." But in a few days Mary, who had subdued her weak husband to her will, persuaded him to fly with her at midnight to Dunbar. Whatever were the intentions of the conspirators towards her she was now out of their power. She soon gathered a large force around her; and marching upon Edinburgh, issued writs of treason against Morton, Ruthven, and others, who fled to England. Murray denied all complicity in the murder of Riccio; and Darnley took refuge in denouncing those with whom he had been associated, as traitors and murderers. They retaliated upon his baseness in a manner that in eleven months led to another more fearful catastrophe. On the 4th of April Randolph writes to Cecil, "the queen hath now seen all the covenants and bonds that passed between the king and the lords; and now findeth that his declaration before her and the council, of his innocency of the death of David, was false." From the hour of that disclosure Darnley was a doomed man.

On the 19th of June, 1566, Mary gave birth to the son who was afterwards king of Scotland and of England. The differences between the various factions now began to be composed. Amicable relations with England were established. Elizabeth agreed to be godmother to the heir of the Scottish throne, and sent a golden font for his baptism. In November, Mary renewed her claim to have a parliamentary recognition of her right of succession to the English crown, in a letter written by her to the lords of Elizabeth's council; but she stated her unwillingness "to press our said good sister further than shall come of her own good pleasure to put that matter in question.". The English parliament, which had met in the beginning of November, had begun to debate about the succession; and, says Camden, "on the one side the Papists propounded unto themselves the queen of Scots, which had newly brought forth a son; on the other, the Protestants, with different affections, propounded to themselves, some one man, some another." Mary alludes to this debate in her letter. Elizabeth was angry at the discussion of this matter; but in her

144

ASCENDENCY OF BOTHWELL.

[1567. instructions to Bedford, who was to be present at the baptism of James, she had, immediately previous to receiving Mary's letter, authorised him to declare that she would never suffer anything to be done prejudicial to Mary's right; but required that she should confirm so much of the treaty of Edinburgh as regarded Elizabeth's rights: "The same being since deferred upon account of some words therein prejudicial to the queen's right and title, before all others, after us, our meaning is to require nothing to be confirmed in that treaty but that which directly appertains to us and our children; omitting anything in that treaty that may be prejudicial to her title as next heir of us and our children." It was added that all this might be secured by a new treaty. Mary was in no hurry to embrace this reasonable proposal; and nothing was done to complete such an engagement, without which Elizabeth said, though we are inclined to preserve amity, yet occasions may happen to incline either of us to be jealous one of another." The occasions of jealousy were never removed.

66

On the 17th of December the baptism of the infant prince took place at Stirling, according to the Roman Catholic ritual. Darnley, although living in the palace, refused to attend the ceremony. Between himself and the queen there was not only coldness but manifest dislike. Mary was profoundly melancholy; and Darnley was proud and moody. A remarkable man, James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell, had now become Mary's most intimate counsellor. She had recently manifested a more than common interest in his welfare. Bothwell had been dangerously wounded in an attempt to arrest Elliot of the Park, a border depredator; and he was carried to his castle of the Hermitage. The queen had been engaged for a week holding a court of justice at Jedburgh, whilst Bothwell was slowly recovering from his wound; and on one day she rode to Hermitage and back, a distance altogether of forty miles. She was accompanied by Murray and others, but the visit gave occasion to scandal, upon which the historians unfavourable to Mary have not failed to dwell. After this interview the queen became dangerously ill; and the melancholy which subsequently settled upon her was frequently expressed by her exclamation, "I could wish to be dead!" A divorce was proposed to her by Bothwell, Murray, and other counsellors; and it has been affirmed upon the confession of Ormiston, a confederate, that a bond for the murder of the king was executed about the same time by several of these persons. The mysteries of this period of dark intrigues and daring plots will never be satisfactorily disclosed, and the precise degree of guilt to be attached to individuals will remain unsettled. Let us briefly relate the ascertained circumstances of the momentous crime that was perpetrated on the 20th of February, 1567.

At the end of 1566 Mary had consented to pardon Morton, Lindsay, and others, with two exceptions, who had been concerned in the murder of Riccio. Darnley dreaded the return of the fellow-conspirators with whom he had broken faith; and he abruptly left the court, and went to his father, the earl of Lennox, at Glasgow. Morton, one of the pardoned nobles, returned to Scotland early in January, 1567. Darnley had fallen sick of a disease which was said to be the small-pox; and on the 22nd of January, Mary proceeded to Glasgow to visit him. Some explanation took place between them, and Darnley agreed to attend the queen to Craigmillar, by slow journeys, she having brought a litter for his conveyance. There is a deposition of Thomas

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